On a windy bluff, a Canadian flag at the local school flies at half mast over the tiny Newfoundland community of Lawn, where after the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge last Tuesday nothing will ever be the same.
Here in this remote fishing and mining town on the southernmost tip of the province, residents have an outsized connection to the unimaginable horror that struck the small northern mining town in British Columbia, thousands of kilometres away.
Lawn, nestled around a long harbour and backed by rolling bluffs and tundra, has just 600 people. Every face is familiar. Large extended families are close and go back generations. Last week, one of those large families in Lawn found itself at the centre of one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history.
The Strangs, many of whom live in neat modest homes along Strang Side Road near the harbour, were devastated to learn the shooter’s mother, Jennifer Strang, 39, who grew up in Lawn, and her son Emmett Jacobs, 11, were the first two victims. Shannda Aviugana-Durand, a 39-year-old mother of two, who had lived in Lawn for about two years around 2020, was also killed. Her husband, Mark Stacey, grew up in the town.
Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, fatally shot her mother and half brother at their home in Tumbler Ridge, before going to the local public school where she killed five students and Ms. Aviugana-Durand, a teacher’s assistant. She also critically injured two others before killing herself.
The other victims who died in the shooting are Abel Mwansa, 12; Ezekiel Schofield, 13; Kylie Smith, 12; Zoey Benoit, 12; Ticaria Lampert, 12.
“It’s unreal,” said Maureen Power, Jennifer Strang’s aunt, breaking down with emotion. “It’s the worst we ever went through in our lives. I can’t look on Facebook, I can’t turn on the TV.”
Mrs. Power, 64, said she is one of 13 siblings of Russell Strang Sr., Jennifer’s father, who lives in Tumbler Ridge with his wife, Adell. She said in and around the town of Lawn there are more than 100 relatives.
RCMP are investigating how the shooter obtained four guns and killed eight people despite warning signs, including past police seizures of the family’s firearms.
Adell and Russell Strang Sr., the shooter’s grandparents, have said that the family had for years tried to get the shooter help for mental-health issues, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, deep depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. From their perspective, they said the system had failed.
The tragedy has shattered the small town of Tumbler Ridge and reverberated across the country here, on the edge of the Atlantic, prompting government officials to offer words of support and provide extra mental-health resources at the local hospital and the Holy Name of Mary Academy on the bluff.
“Although many miles may separate us, our communities share a special bond,” wrote Lawn Mayor Shane Kearney in a statement on behalf of the town council.
“We understand how deeply an event like this impacts not only those directly involved in Tumbler Ridge, but also those in our own town.
“Please know that your neighbours stand beside you with care, compassion, and strength. We are here for you.”
In Winnie Follett’s warm kitchen in Lawn, she fried fish for supper on Friday. At the table, her sister Trudy Edwards Jarvis tallied up hundreds of dollars in donations for a 50-50 draw she organized to raise money for the affected families in the community, starting with Russell and Adell Strang, who were her good friends when they lived in Lawn.
“It’s very sad,” Ms. Edwards Jarvis said. “They’re victims too.”
Sisters Winnifred Follett and Trudy Edwards Jarvis have been holding a draw to support families affected by the Tumbler Ridge shooting.
Mrs. Follett said the small close-knit community is heartbroken over the tragedy, but also feels compassion for the grandparents of the shooter.
“Everybody feels like what happened was so senseless, but still at the same time you’re thinking about Adell and Russell and what they’re dealing with – losing a daughter, a grandson and a granddaughter. And then on top of that, it was their granddaughter that caused it.”
(Jesse was born as a biological male but identified as female.)
“You think about it and your heart gets so heavy,” Mrs. Follett later added. “For those young children – you just can’t imagine.”
Ms. Edwards Jarvis is planning a second fundraiser to support Mr. Stacey, whom she has known since he was a boy. His mother, Kathy Roul, a former principal at the local school, has since departed to be at the side of her son and grandchildren in Tumbler Ridge.
Part of a quiet family who kept to themselves, Ms. Aviugana-Durand’s daughter, now in Grade 11, attended the local school in Lawn, where Mr. Stacey found work at a nearby mine. Friends described Ms. Aviugana-Durand as patient and warm, a devoted wife and a loving mother who showed up for others, offering comfort without hesitation.
Jennifer Strang and Emmett Jacobs were the first two victims of the Tumbler Ridge killings.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
Jennifer Strang, who also went by Jennifer Jacobs, was a single mother of five. Her aunt, Mrs. Power, described her as a “more than wonderful mother and very kind and loving girl,” who moved west with her parents for work when she was a teenager.
As an adult she lived an itinerant life in Western Canada, finding work operating heavy equipment at mining operations, while briefly returning to Newfoundland about a decade ago to live in Chamberlains, where her former husband worked at a nickel-processing plant.
She was known as a caring mother who used every resource she had to support her kids, but struggled to care for her eldest child, consulting parenting forums for help and, more recently, turning to the psychiatric-care system for interventions.
The connection between the two towns is one that has defined rural Newfoundland for decades. The closing of coal mines, the collapse of the cod fishery, and fluctuations in the oil industry have driven many Newfoundlanders over the years to head west for work, creating diasporas from The Rock in blue-collar towns all over the west, including Tumbler Ridge, B.C.
On the quiet streets of Lawn, where many of the homes were still decked in Christmas decorations and lights this past weekend, grief was raw, too much for many to speak about.
Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church held a special Sunday mass for the shooting victims as Lawn tried to make sense of the tragedy.
The close-knit Strangs are leaning on each other. Mrs. Power’s four sons recently left for Tumbler Ridge to support the older couple, who are now left to care for Jennifer’s three surviving children. Each day, one sibling calls Russell Sr. in Tumbler Ridge, and then later in the evening the family members gather at a relative’s home to talk about it.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get through this,” she said quietly, her voice cracking with emotion.
At first, she wanted to stay away from church, to avoid letting her emotions spill out for everyone in the town to see. But when Sunday morning came around she felt she had to go to the small brick warehouse church on the edge of the harbour.
The parking lot was packed. Under an opaque winter sky, dozens of solemn-faced community members flooded into the morning mass where a prayer was read for the victims and their families in Tumbler Ridge.
Neighbours and friends approached her, gently offering condolences and hugs – and, just as she expected, she broke down crying.
With a report from Jesse Winter
Tumbler Ridge shooting: More from The Globe and Mail
The Decibel podcast
Hear from community members in Tumbler Ridge on The Decibel, which also interviewed reporters Matthew Scace and Alanna Smith about what they saw in the aftermath of the shooting. Subscribe for more episodes.
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